Yes, this has been a wet October. In some parts of Missouri, it has been the wettest October on record. That, the National Weather Service confirms. What that means for winter remains uncertain.
In St. Louis, more than 8 ½ inches of rain has fallen in October, the most rain since 1870 when the National Weather Service began keeping records.
Meteorologist Benjamin Sipprell, who works in the St. Louis Weather Service office, calls it an abnormal pattern.
“I think for the most part, what we have seen is a little bit more in terms of synoptic, deep low-pressure centers that have evolved over the western portion of the U.S. that have been a little further south than we would typically see for this time of year,” Sipprell says.
There haven’t been any huge rains, just steady precipitation throughout the month.
“We’ve only seen a few days where we’ve seen a couple of inches on one day,” according to Sipprell, “but, prolonging over the entire month we’ve had mostly wet weather across many of the days of October.”
Though October has been wet, the long-term forecast predicts warmer-than-average temperatures this winter with above-average precipitation in the southern border states, not in the Midwest. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects Ell Niño to dominate the winter weather pattern. NOAA recently released its 2009 Winter Outlook. It predicts warmer-than-average temperatures across much of the western and central United States. Above-average precipitation is expected only in southern border states, especially Texas and Florida.